Blair Kamin

ColumnistCityscapes

Pulitzer Prize winner Blair Kamin has been the Chicago Tribune’s architecture critic since 1992. A graduate of Amherst College and the Yale School of Architecture, he also had been a fellow at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Kamin has lectured widely and regularly discusses architecture on television and radio. He is the recipient of more than 40 awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Recent Articles

An architectural wonder of Chicago’s 1933-34 World’s Fair may be on its way to a brighter future — if, that is, somebody is willing to spend nearly $3 million to restore the fabled House of Tomorrow but not own it. Designed by Chicago architect George Fred Keck and situated near Beverly Shores,...

Those who seek to build grand edifices in Chicago’s lakefront parks do so at their own risk. That’s one takeaway from a federal judge’s surprising Tuesday decision not to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the location of the Obama Presidential Center in historic Jackson Park. But the setback doesn’t...

Before architecture becomes a tangible thing that shapes how we live, it begins in the realm of the intangible — as an idea. Oak Park architect Paul Preissner was recognized on Monday for a bright idea: His design for a community center in the city’s violence-plagued Greater Grand Crossing area...

The shades were drawn last month when a glittering array of architects presented their plans for the massive O’Hare International Airport expansion in a high-ceilinged downtown lecture hall. Other glass walls that would have let people peek in were papered over. The architects included Zurich-based...

“The ubiquitous Chicago bungalow is snug, sensible, ugly and reassuring,” Tribune architecture critic Paul Gapp wrote in 1980. “It suggests that treasured old middle-class value systems still survive.” In the 39 years since then, appreciation of the humble, one-story bungalow has grown, but so...

Glass-sheathed modern buildings make for spectacular skylines, but they’re also bird killers, especially in Chicago. Each year, thousands of birds die when they smash into large glass windows they can’t see. Lights from skyscrapers can also confuse migrating birds, causing them to circle buildings...

You’re likely to notice the CTA’s new 95th Street terminal even if you never set foot inside. The ultralong building is an eye-grabber wedged in the middle of the busy Dan Ryan Expressway. Bright red walls wrap around the terminal, seemingly holding together its disparate pieces like a taut ribbon....

If you've lived in Chicago long enough, you know the grand narratives of its architecture — birthplace of the skyscraper, the city that makes no little plans. But let's face it. Those stories are self-congratulatory. The third Chicago Architecture Biennial, the big exhibition of contemporary architecture...